ADESA helps donors to ‘give it up’

In collaboration with JDRF, ADESA Canada has launched a new vehicle donation program aimed at helping accelerate solutions for the management, care and cure of type 1 diabetes (T1D).

Called “Give it Up! For A Cure” and supported by the giveitup.jdrf.ca website, the idea, explained Scott Piccolo, ADESA’s new business development manager, was to make it easy for people to donate their vehicles for a worthy cause.

“It was important to make the program simple and effective,” he said. “Dealers can suggest to customers that they can donate their vehicle to the JDRF; ADESA will facilitate transportation of the vehicle, handle the sale, and ensure the donation proceeds are forwarded to JDRF. JDRF will then issue a tax receipt for the customer.”

According to Elio Rea, brand and marketing manager for JDRF, the relationship between the foundation and the auction started on a grassroots level several years ago out of ADESA’s Winnipeg location.

“ADESA Winnipeg presented the vehicle donation option back then, but it wasn’t a national program at that time and ran informally,” Rea said.

It wasn’t until 2012 when he met with Steve Langdon, ADESA Canada’s senior executive sales director to discuss the idea of launching a more formal partnership which would facilitate the donation of any type of motorized vehicle across the Country.

After a soft launch earlier this spring, the Give It Up! site is ready to roll to help dealers and individual donors streamline vehicle donations.

Donating is as easy as 1-2-3; once a customer agrees to donate a vehicle, the user simply fills out the required disclosure information and ADESA handles the rest. Donors can track their vehicle donation online from the pick-up through to the sale, and can actually see what their vehicle sold for in the auction lanes.

The program provides downloadable, high-resolution promotional posters that can be displayed in dealerships wishing to support the initiative.

“When you break it down, a consumer could trade in their older vehicle and apply whatever the proceeds are against a new vehicle or they could simply donate it helping a worthwhile charity. Alternatively, the consumer may have an ATV, an RV, a boat sitting at home that they no longer use, which they wouldn’t have known they could donate had they not visited the dealership which promoted the program.”

Driven by passionate, grassroots volunteers connected to children, adolescents, and adults with this disease, JDRF is the largest charitable supporter of T1D research.

JDRF said its goal is to improve the lives of all people affected by T1D by accelerating progress on the most promising opportunities for curing, better treating, and preventing this disease.

Since being founded in 1970 it has awarded more than $1.7 billion (US) to T1D research. More than 300,00 Canadians currently live with T1D.